


terror comes not with the cold

by technorat



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Angst, Curses, M/M, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:41:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28100112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/technorat/pseuds/technorat
Summary: Having turned down an older man’s proposal, Hux is cursed to be as cold as his heart. As he tracks the older man across the continent, he is followed by one of Death’s choosers of the dead, the alluring and frightening Kylo Ren. Hux must choose between revenge and respite from the cold he carries with him.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 16
Kudos: 55
Collections: Kylux Big Bang 2020





	terror comes not with the cold

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/gay_galaxy_guy) !  
> You can follow the artist on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/SquiresBella) and on tumblr [here](https://sinningsquire.tumblr.com)! 
> 
> You can see and share the first round of art on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/SquiresBella/status/1339106039162089472) and on tumblr [here](https://sinningsquire.tumblr.com/post/637642294416277504/first-two-pieces-i-made-for-our-kyluxbigbang)
> 
> And now you can see and share the second round of art!! here's the twitter [link](https://twitter.com/SquiresBella/status/1339474738847084546) and here's the tumblr [link](https://sinningsquire.tumblr.com/post/637733834443636736/and-heres-the-second-pair-of-illustrations-i-made) !!
> 
> It was very fun to work on and I hope it'll be a fun reading experience!!
> 
> Special shout out to lefteyeastrology for being my beta and shouting about this fic with me !
> 
> warnings: temporary character death, minor character deaths, some body horror and gore, torture, pryde is a creep

Hux winds his latest creation, a delicate music box made of harvested scrap. He sets it down on his work desk just as a song warbles out of its shell. The box opens slowly, a small, delicate doll dances at its heart. This is one of Arkanis’s old stories: the tale of the Pearl Diver and her lover, Death.

It would very likely fetch a decent price at the market.

Hux shuts the music box, cutting off the final sweet note, and sets it aside.

He sighs and stands up from his work desk, his whole body aching. He has spent long hours stooped over his treasures, those materials he’d found on the ruined lands war had been waged on, and now his back paid the price.

He needs to return soon for new materials, to salvage what else has been unearthed by the ever churning sands of Jakku.

There comes a knock at his door, entirely unexpected and unwanted.

Precious few of Arkanis would dare to show up at Hux’s door.

“Armitage,” his father barks through the door, just as rough and loud as he remembered. “I know you’re in there.”

Hux lets out another little sigh and prays to the sweet stars. He removes his grease-stained apron and sets it aside. When he goes to the front door, his father is red with his rage.

Brendol Hux had never been the most patient man, not now, not ever. Age could not temper a personality such as his.

When Hux was seventeen, he had escaped his father’s house by enlisting in the war. The Empire had been falling apart then, but the pay he’d received had been enough for him to buy a small cottage, on the far side of their sleepy town, just far enough away that Brendol would not readily go and pay a visit and yet here he is.

Brendol all but shoves an envelope into Hux’s hand. “You are formally invited to welcome the war hero General Pryde back home to Arkanis.”

Hux opens the envelope and reads what is written in the beautiful calligraphy of one Maratelle Hux.

“A dinner party,” Hux reads out.

“You were a soldier,” Brendol tells him, as if this is something Hux could have forgotten. “You didn’t serve under General Pryde, but it would be good for you to be there. You have… that _commonality_.”

Hux says nothing. There is no point to arguing with Brendol.

Brendol is like one of the Emperor’s Knights, single-minded and prone to violence. It is not worth even the effort to argue with him when Hux’s words would be little more than rainwater against Brendol’s skin.

When Brendol is done, he turns around and leaves, his pace as brisk and resolute as ever. He has no business with his son other than his more precious public engagements.

Outside, it is drizzling, more mist than rain.

His blood is boiling within him.

He cannot rest now.

Hux pulls his second best rain poncho over his head and collects one of his bags. Outside, his donkey brays loudly, tail swishing at the sight of Hux. There is still time in the day. He can be productive still.

*

Jakku is a wasteland, devoid of all life. Its sands encroach upon more and more of the continent, slowly devouring all that it surrounds. Hux urges the donkey towards this wasteland. Once, Jakku had been a lively forest that stretched across the land, filled with countless living creatures and prized for its rare flora. Now there are only the husks left from the war.

Hux is well acquainted with these husks.

He had ridden in the great, big war machines and crawled along their guts. He had repaired what had been broken and salvaged what could not be fixed.

Now he does much the same.

Hux finds precious materials, such as chromium and bits of shattered kyber crystal. There is a small mousedroid with most of its parts still functioning, though partially drowned in sand. This droid takes up most of Hux’s bag.

At least it would fetch a decent price at market.

Droids were no longer so easy to acquire. Most households gave up their droids for the war effort. Not many were returned. And, with the Empire fallen, no more droids were being produced.

Not yet, but soon, thinks Hux, hefting the bag higher on his shoulder.

There are many scavengers who parse through Jakku’s ever shifting sands. Hux tends to avoid them like the plague.

He is not weak. He is not helpless. There are monomolecular daggers strapped to his wrists and an ancient slugthrower at his hip.

Still, it is nice to be alone. When he wants to be.

(This want for solitary time grows as he gets older. He will be a hermit by the time he is Brendol’s age.

In all honesty, there are precious few people whose presence does not irritate him. That number only ever grows smaller as time goes on.)

Hux makes his careful way back to Arkanis, picking through sand dunes and broken machines until all that beige and grey is replaced with various shades of green. It’s a sudden transition from all that death to life.

The clouds rumble overhead, thunder licking across the sky.

It is always raining in Arkanis, that, or the sky hangs grey and gloomy, as threatening a downpour. But it is home. He knows no place better than the quiet of Arkanis where nothing ever changes.

He shifts his bag again, shoulder aching from the weight of his new droid.

No one stops him on his warpath back to his home. Who would? Hux has never had _friends_ in Arkanis. He did not to rely on anyone but himself, not when humans were so fickle and fallible, prone to anger and cruelty both. He never would rely on another being, not so long as he could help it.

(Droids did not count. They were not people. They were efficient and intelligent, more so than so many of the bumbling fools he had met in the course of his short life.)

(The donkey counts less.)

In his workshop, he cleans the mousedroid of sand and checks its internals more thoroughly. It takes no time at all to fix the poor thing and set it on the ground.

The mousedroid beeps and whirrs, taking in its new surroundings.

Then it begins to clean the floor of the workshop of the sand Hux had carried in.

Life in Arkanis goes a little like this:

You are born. You are taught your lessons at the Academy—language and mathematics alongside of military tactics and hand-to-hand combat. In your free time, you swim through the cold ocean and collect scallops and mussels that you will eat for dinner. Sometimes, you are lucky and you will find a precious pearl, which you will hide from everyone until you can skitter off to some other town and sell it for pocket money and sweets.

You grow up. You find a job in one of the several industries that are still thriving. You might be a fisherman or a teacher at the Academy. You might train to become a doctor, but this is less likely. The old professions, however, never die.

You will get married and have children.

When you grow old, your children will take care of you, in payment of your services to them when they were little.

Then you will die. Your body will be cremated, ashes carried out by the sea breeze.

This is an endless cycle.

Hux is thirty already, thought well past the proper age for marriage. He is not a fisherman, nor a teacher, nor a doctor, but something else entirely, something that bucks tradition.

He considers himself an artisan. A technician. The others in Arkanis think of him as an oddity.

But why would he marry when he saw first-hand how poorly marriages go?

Brendol Hux married the younger Maratelle. When Maratelle produced no children, Brendol Hux raped a kitchen woman resulting in his scion.

There is no such thing as love. Love is just a chemical reaction firing off in one’s brain. Love is just a lie to excuse poor behavior between those who are married.

(Divorce is not common in Arkanis. It’s almost unheard of, even now. Something dirty, something shameful, something only spoken about in whispers.)

Hux has avoided suitors like the plague. Why would he not?

Marriage is just a contract to produce heirs or collect resources. Hux has no need for more than what he already has.

Hux is content what he has in his little workshop. He must be. There is no other option.

*

When the day of his father’s dinner party arrives, Hux dresses himself in plain, dark colors and arrives exactly on time.

His father greets him at the door, uncharacteristically happy to see his heir. His father is also ruddy-cheeked and smelling of alcohol, which is the likelier source of joy this night.

Hux had never actually seen General Pryde during the war. Somehow, Hux had expected someone more impressive, like the unshaken, undefeated General Sloane. Pryde is older than Brendol even, his lips permanently tilted down in a sneer of distaste, his hair grey and dull. He eats slowly, taking tiny bites and gesturing with his fork while regaling them all with tales of the war.

“—and the Knights! They were difficult brutes, the lot of them,” Pryde says. With this, he prods the air before him, like he is stabbing a particularly annoying Knight. “They didn’t know how to take orders. They just did whatever they wanted, to the detriment of those around them.”

Hux, carefully, does not roll his eyes. This is a near thing. He hides his mouth behind a steaming mug of bitter tarine tea.

Brendol barks with loud, obnoxious laughter. “Young men need to know their place,” he says. “Isn’t that right, Armitage?”

Hux looks at his father but does not answer. He drinks more tea. Somehow, it tastes even more bitter than before.

The conversation rolls on. Every other guest is an old man, save for Hux. Even Maratelle is not welcome here. Together, these old men all reminisce on the glorious days of the Empire as Hux thinks about what excuse he can make to leave.

Hux tunes out partway through it, mechanically feeding himself slices of breaded cod and roasted root vegetables.

This is the first part of the endless dinner party. Several servants clear the table, their gazes kept low. Brendol used to have several droids to do this task—not to make it easier for the servants in his employ, but to make a show of his wealth.

Then servants bring out the bottles of whiskey, imported all the way from Alderaan, the heart of the Republic.

Hux declines a drink. He has seen firsthand what it does to a man.

He excuses himself quietly while the old men talk, so enraptured with a past they can no longer reach. He walks through Brendol’s gardens, taking quick, brisk steps away from the house and all of its guests.

“Armitage.”

Hux stops. Turns around.

Pryde has followed him outside, a thoughtful look on his face. “My boy, Armitage,” he says. “I’ve heard wonderful things about you. Brendol and Sloane only ever had kind words for you. Now, seeing you, I know they were not exaggerating your beauty.”

Hux is silent.

“May Sloane rest among the stars.” This time, Pryde has the audacity to smile, displaying all of his teeth.

Hux’s skin crawls.

Hux stands at parade rest, a habit he could not fully shake. His hands are folded behind his back. He clenches his fists, nails digging into skin. “May General Sloane rest among the stars,” Hux repeats. “She was taken from this world too soon.”

Pryde makes a sympathetic sound. It does not come across as very sympathetic.

“If you would excuse me, General Pryde,” Hux says.

“You may simply call me Enric,” says the man, older even than Brendol. He smiles again, but it is no less unsettling. There’s something odd about his eyes. His gaze is far too steady, far too focused on Hux.

He feels much like an insect, pinned behind glass.

“Right,” Hux says with some hesitance. “If you would excuse me, _Enric_. I must retire early. I have to catch up on my work tomorrow.”

“Mm.” Pryde inclines his head. “Your father has told me about your workshop. Perhaps I will visit tomorrow, work permitting.”

If it had been any other general from the Empire, if it had been five years prior, Hux would have likely leapt with joy.

But now he is uneasy. The workshop has become his home, away from all outsiders. It had become his sanctuary, safe from all intruders.

This includes, particularly, those friends of Brendol.

“Work permitting,” Hux echoes, because it is the fastest way he might escape from this conversation.

“Good night,” Pryde tells him.

Hux nods stiffly and marches all the way home.

He very nearly does not make it, his heart hammering its way out of his chest.

In his workshop, the repaired mousedroid welcomes him with a charming little beep. He has never been so relieved to be alone.

Hux bends over and runs a finger down the length of the mousedroid’s antenna.

*

Hux wakes early, earlier than ever before. He washes, dresses, and does not eat a bite for breakfast. He urges the donkey forth, to the edge of town, when the worst possible thing happens.

Pryde is out for a walk. He sees Hux and smiles.

“Kriff me,” Hux says to the donkey.

The donkey says nothing. Traitor.

“Good morning, Armitage,” Pryde says. He eyes the donkey. “Would you care for breakfast before you return to your workshop to catch up on your work?”

“I’ve already eaten,” Hux lies. “Excuse me.”

Pryde steps in his way. “How about I treat you to dinner then?” he asks. There is a twinkle in Pryde’s eye, one that Hux really does not like.

“If time permits,” Hux says, because it is the only way Pryde will allow him to _leave_.

Pryde smiles again, still looking misplaced on his face. “I’ll hold you to your word.”

Hux nods and tugs the donkey along. This time, the donkey cooperates, all but flying out of the small village of Arkanis.

Jakku, in comparison, is much more welcoming. It is empty and quiet, and, thankfully, there are no creepy friends of Brendol’s lurking about. He had not truly wanted to go to Jakku this day in particular, but now that he is here, he may as well be productive.

The sands have unearthed several more machines from the war. Who knows how long he has before the sands take away this gift once again.

Hux crawls into the smallest of them, a TIE fighter that would never sail the sky again. He pries open the control console and is pleased to find so many parts still salvageable. He takes everything that might be useful without even thinking, packing a bag full of metal and delicate, irreplaceable pieces, no longer in manufacture. Each one is branded with the starburst of the Empire.

There is something shiny at the bottom of the TIE fighter.

Hux pauses and bends down to retrieve it.

It’s a kyber crystal, miraculously whole and clear. An infinite amount of possibilities lay before Hux in that moment.

Of all the materials used in the war, kyber crystals were the most difficult to retrieve. The kyber mines of Illum had long gone dry, as the land was all but hollowed out.

He could create a blaster or perhaps a sabre. He could invent all matter of weaponry that could spit up energy. He had seen all this and more and thought it lost.

Evidently, he was wrong.

Hux returns to his donkey, filled with a jittering sort of energy. Even if he did not create something with this kyber crystal, he could sell it for a handsome amount.

“What do you have there?” asks one of the scavengers.

Hux snorts. He doesn’t have to turn around to know what who it is. He would recognize that young voice anywhere. “Nothing for you to concern yourself about,” he says.

This does not discourage Rey of Jakku. She tilts her head, goggles reflecting the glint of the sun. “Then it must be something good,” she says, her Imperial accent as crisp as the one Hux imitates.

She’s a grubby little thing, a teenager dressed in oversized beige clothing. She holds a staff, ready to give anyone a good twack over the head.

“Mm.” Hux urges the donkey forth.

Rey follows along, kicking up small clouds of sand. “You can tell me,” she says to him, because they have traded their materials before and, likely, will trade again in the future. “I won’t rob you. I promise.”

“Lucky me,” Hux says scathingly. As if that teenager could rough him up—she’s all skin and _bones_.

Rey _lives_ in this wasteland, surviving off of whatever rations the junklord Unkar Plutt doled out for her work. It, by no means, was enough for a growing child. To imply that she could even try to rob _him_ was almost pitiful.

“You looked happy,” Rey says. Then, because she cannot shut up, she says, “That’s unusual.”

“Thank you, as always, for your kind words,” says Hux, sneering. “Shouldn’t you be scavenging?”

Rey tilts her head. “I still have time. There’s plenty of stuff to find if you know where to look.”

“Are you so sure of that?” Hux asks dryly.

As if the stars are mocking him, the desert churns and burps. Just over the horizon, a bubble of sand bursts, revealing the tip to shiny Stardestroyer, with all of its panels still attached.

He cannot quite see her face, covered entirely in beige fabric to keep away most of the sun’s blistering rays, but he knows in his heart of hearts that she is smirking.

“See,” says Rey, pointing at the Stardestroyer with her staff. “Plenty of time to scavenge. Not as much time to extract answers out of you.”

“Lucky you,” says Hux once again, this time much more tired. “You’ll have me for hours still.”

The sun is at its height in the sky. He doesn’t want to even start returning to Arkanis until the sun has set.

Rey pauses and pulls the goggles away from her eyes. “Seriously?” she says. “Is someone trying to kill you or steal your stuff there?”

Hux snorts. If only it was that simple. “No,” he says. “Sorry to kill your burgeoning bodyguard career.”

“I saved one guy,” says Rey. “Not his fault he didn’t know about the sinking fields up north.”

“Yes, and how well did that go?” asks Hux.

“Not well. He wanted me to leave Jakku,” Rey says, as if this is something unreasonable.

“You’ll leave eventually,” Hux tells her. He has long learned this: no parent is worth waiting for. Whoever abandoned Rey to the sands could only be cruel—absent-minded and idiotic at best.

Rey rolls her eyes at him. This would not have been allowed in Arkanis, but Rey is more than a little feral. “Tell me what’s wrong in good old Arkanis. Has something changed?”

And that’s the reality of it.

Sleepy little Arkanis has finally, finally changed and, of course, it had not changed for the better.

“I have a suitor,” Hux says.

“ _Oooh_.”

“He is older than my father.”

“Ugh, gross.”

This is the good thing about Rey: she is still young enough that romance is not interesting and boys have cooties.

(She’s right, after all. Boys are so often _vile_. But men, so often, are worse.)

“Will you kill him?” asks Rey, her knuckles white against her staff.

(Then again, Rey is a bit of a gremlin, isolated from most other people.)

Hux shakes his head. “He is a respected general from the war,” he says, long sufferingly. “He cannot simply _disappear_ without a trace.”

Arkanis is too small for a man to disappear and for no one to ask questions. Especially if it were General Pryde. Especially if General Pryde’s interest in Hux had been noticed. Especially if Hux ran away soon after.

Rey shrugs. “You could make it work,” she says, which is not as concerning as it could be. “Hiding a body is easy-peasy. Just throw it over a cliff.”

They spend some time quietly, stripping the Stardestroyer of all of the useful material they can reach. They split it mostly evenly.

(Mostly, because Hux does not want to imagine this _child_ go hungry again because of the cruelties of a junklord when he could help it.)

When the sun begins to set and the desert grows colder, Hux gathers his belongings and settles their weight atop the donkey.

“Can I trust that you’ll be fine on your own?” Hux asks.

Rey nods, pulling the goggles down, right back over her eyes. “Who do you think I am?”

Hux scoffs. She’s right. He waves and leaves, returning to Arkanis, where hopefully Pryde has given up the wait.

*

Unfortunately, Armitage Hux has always had rotten luck. He had been born under a foul star, if Brendol Hux were to be believed.

The second he crosses the threshold of Arkanis, he sees Pryde, a smile snug upon his face.

“Armitage,” he says with far too much warmth. “I have been waiting for you.”

Hux stiffens. The donkey brays at Hux’s sudden stop. “General Pryde,” he says. “The hours escaped me. I apologize for my lateness.”

When Hux walks forwards, Pryde meets him halfway.

“You _must_ call me Enric, Armitage. I’ve told you this already,” Pryde says far too gently. “Regardless, it isn’t too late for a nice dinner.”

“I am tired,” Hux says and this is not a lie.

“You’ll rest your feet,” Pryde says, clearly unable to take a no for an answer.

Hux sighs and places a hand onto the donkey. “I must bring my donkey back home,” he says. “Stubborn thing deserves a treat for such hard work.”

“Leave it to me,” Pryde insists, his eyes so very warm, that their dark brown looked very nearly gold. “I’ll take care of you both.”

Hux is unable to say no this time, his mouth suddenly quiet, no words coming to his tongue. He follows behind Pryde, all the way to Pryde’s less than humble estates.

Though Arkanis is small, Pryde has a handful of servants, dressed in Imperial grey. They take the donkey from Hux and bring it towards their stables to be brushed down and fed, perhaps the best treatment the donkey has received in its lowly life.

“Here,” Pryde says, seating Hux at one end of the table. He sits across Hux, a respectable distance away. “Just wait.”

And though he says this, it feels like there is no wait at all before more servants file out, carrying large bowls and plates of Arkanian delicacies.

Hux eats little, though he is hungry. His nerves make his stomach churn and twist uncomfortably. He remains stony-faced, impassive. It is never wise to let others know that you are weak. He suspects that being weak before Pryde would be as good as betraying the Emperor.

“How do you like Arkanis?” Pryde asks him.

This is as effective as asking a fish how it likes the ocean, and just as informative.

“It is home,” Hux says simply. You don’t have to like your home.

Pryde hums. He takes a long sip of red wine, holding up his chalice as though he means to make a toast. “It is home,” he repeats. “It is good to be loyal to one’s home, though, I have to say, your… workshop, as Brendol puts it, leaves much to be desired. It is rather small, isn’t it?”

Hux does not rolls his eyes, but this is a near thing. “It is suitable for my purposes,” he says, careful to keep his annoyance out of his voice.

“Would you not want a more spacious home?” Pryde asks.

“I am content with what I have. I have worked to achieve everything that I own.” Hux puts down his fork and knife, hand settling instead around a glass of cold water. He counts the floating chunks of ice instead of meeting Pryde’s intense gaze.

“You could have more.”

Hux shuts his eyes. “I am content with what I have, General Pryde,” he repeats, this time more firmly.

“I told you to call me Enric, didn’t I?” Pryde says with false lightheartedness.

Hux inclines his head. “I am used to using titles,” he says instead of acknowledging this request. He does not want this _closeness_ , he does not want anything that could be described as _intimacy._

“You’re a quick study, I’m told,” Pryde says, not unkindly. “You’ll adjust.”

This, more than anything, sends a shudder down Hux’s spine.

It takes another hour for Hux to excuse himself and actually leave Pryde’s home. It has begun to drizzle, misting along Hux’s skin.

In the safety of his own home it is warm and it is safe.

 _Never again_ , Hux thinks to himself, his nails digging into the flesh of his palms until blood springs up from crescent-shaped scars. _Never again will I entertain the intentions of that man._

_*_

Hux wakes early in the morning. He always does, though this time he feels well rested. He loads several bags with his creations.

He has a small cart he uses to bring goods to Alderaan. The donkey might be a stubborn creature, but it is partial to bribes--especially if the bribe happens to be an apple or a sugar cube.

If he leaves early, he can make the most of the day and set up shop in the ideal location.

(If he leaves early, he is more likely to avoid Pryde.)

Alderaan is to the west of Arkanis, several hours even with the donkey. It is lively and crowded, much more interesting than Arkanis in many ways.

Most of those ways involve money.

There are many old and wealthy families living in Alderaan. They had survived the war, if only just barely. Better, they are from the Republic, so Hux does not feel bad about overcharging them for his creations.

(Besides, what else would they do with the extra money? Probably spend it on something equally frivolous as the pretty but useless music box.)

Hux bribes his donkey with yet another sugar cube.

"You're released from duties," Hux tells the donkey sternly. "For now."

It brays rather loudly, likely rejoicing.

There is enough foot traffic early on. Hux sells all of his wares.

Then there is an older woman, dressed in dark robes. Her hair is braided into an elaborate crown around her brow, though her hair is otherwise bare of ornamentation or jewelry. She looks almost like she is mourning. She raises a brow at Hux. “Why do you have a kyber crystal?” she asks.

Hux stiffens.

He has hidden the kyber crystal in a locket and wears that locket beneath all of the many layers of his clothing, the cold metal pressed against the skin that hides away his heart. “I do not know what you are suggesting,” he says.

“You will sell the kyber crystal to me,” she says.

Hux frowns and shakes his head slowly. “It isn’t for sale,” he says, confirming that he does, in fact, possess a kyber crystal.

The woman tilts her head. “I’ll make it worth your while,” she says quietly. “I am not without means.”

“Name an offer,” Hux tells her. No matter what she says, he will tell her that it is not enough for the rare treasure he had unearthed.

When the woman makes her offer, Hux says no such thing. Instead, he dreams of all of the homes he might buy, far, far away from Arkanis.

*

Hux spends the rest of the day in Alderaan. If he had not been weighed down by the credit chips he’d earned, he surely would have floated away with the bliss he was experiencing. He buys himself a tin of loose tarine tea and several pastries filled with sweet millaflower preserves.

The day passes by far too quickly. Soon enough, it is time for Hux to return to Arkanis. He dreads this, now more than ever before.

How quickly had he stopped thinking of Arkanis as home now that he had a small sum of credits burning holes through his pocket.

The donkey mouths at his poncho sleeve. Hux pulls away slowly, before patting the top of the donkey’s head.

At least the donkey would never be as foolish as Pryde or Brendol or so many other old men.

He returns to Arkanis, thinking of nothing but his bed and one last celebratory cup of tea.

The road back is quiet enough. Uneventful. Ideal.

Hux settles into his home easily enough, with nothing on his mind but content.

However, Hux’s luck never does last.

There is a knock at his front door.

Hux pinches the bridge of his nose and rises from his ice blue sofa. He is not dressed for visitors, wearing a sweater too large for him, stockings, and loose slippers. He had been dressed for sleep, for relaxation, not for whatever _this_ is.

The knocking is insistent. Outside, his donkey brays.

“This better be important,” Hux hisses.

He opens the door, ready to give whoever it is a piece of his mind. He expects Brendol, probably red-faced and stinking of alcohol.

But it is not Brendol. It is worse.

Pryde stands there, an unsettling smile on his face. He looks a little pale, his eyes rimmed with red. “Armitage,” he says. “I hope I haven’t found you at an inconvenient time.”

“General Pryde,” says Hux. He does not want to have this conversation. This very interaction. By all means, he should shut the door in the older man’s face, but it would do nothing to discourage him. “What is it?”

“Armitage,” Pryde says, far too saccharinely for Hux’s taste. “I’ve told you to call me Enric.”

Hux shifts from foot to foot. He does not let go of the front door, but instead grips it desperately. He says nothing.

“Armitage,” Pryde says, yet again, as though by invoking Hux’s name over and over, he will endear himself to Hux. This does not work. Not even a little bit. “As you well know, the war took a toll on all of us. Many years were spent fighting. I have returned to Arkanis to settle down finally. I have always believed in the importance of marriage and family. Brendol has long told me of your filiality and your hard working nature. These are agreeable qualities in a spouse. I have come to propose—”

“ _No_ ,” says Hux. “I will not marry you, Pryde.” Anger creeps up past his heart, past his throat, exiting in the form of words. “I have never been interested in you. I do not _care_ what my father has told you about me. I will not marry you, no matter how often you force your presence upon me.”

The smile falls from Pryde’s face. His eyes are less amber, more yellow. He looks everything like those wicked commandants in the Imperial army, those who took their pleasure in punishing cadets with rods and whips.

(Hux should know. One such commandant was his father.)

“Your heart is ice,” says Pryde, his voice like the far off rumble of thunder. “I returned to Arkanis to leave behind my past, but alas I was mistaken. I did not see you as you are: horrid, selfish, uncaring. I curse you, Armitage Hux, to be as cold as your heart. May winter follow you wherever you go and with this cold, death.”

Hux stumbles back.

A pain lances inside of him, spiraling up his chest. Hux falls onto his knees, holding his hands against his heart. He is cold, so _cold_. His breath leaves him in little clouds.

“What have you done?” Hux demands. His voice comes out brittle and broken. Hux nearly does not recognize it. “What have you _done_?”

Pryde vanishes in a gust of dark wind.

Hux falls to his hands and knees. He is shaking, all of him. Tears blur his vision. When they fall, they are solid. They shatter against the ground, a thousand tiny shards of ice.

“What…?”

Hux stares at his hands. He has always been pale. He is paler than pale, bordering on blue. His nails are violet. He stands carefully, all of his joints protesting at the movement.

He stumbles through his house, shivering violently. His teeth chatter uncontrollably.

In the bathroom there is a mirror. The only mirror he owns.

He does not recognize his reflection. His skin is ice, the circles beneath his eyes like bruises. Blood vessels have burst in his eyes. His lips are pale and chapped.

Hux had never considered himself vain, but he had been… satisfied with his appearance, if not his thin frame. He has changed with this curse, becoming little more than a wraith.

Even his hair is dead, lying limply across his forehead, nearly bleached of all color.

Hux reaches out, his hand brushing against the mirror’s surface. Frost dances beside his fingertips. “No,” he says, barely above a whisper. He can see his breath even now, even indoors. “ _No.”_

He weeps again, like he is a child, fragile and brittle. Vulnerable and weak.

He wails, little beads of ice traveling down his face, shattering upon the ground one by one.

No one comes to his aid. No one ever has.

*

Outside of Hux’s home, a storm is brewing. Dark clouds gather in the skies above Arkanis, twisting and churning with the wind.

It begins to snow, powder light and feathery at first. Then it grows heavy, snow sticking to the ground and piling up against the houses. Past doors, past windows. The snow smothers crops and the wind scares what few animals the people of Arkanians keep.

Hux dresses himself in layers, with his very best tunic on top. Still, he is cold, colder, coldest.

He has become a piece of living ice.

When there is a knock at Hux’s door, he ignores it. Nothing good comes of answering one’s door. First the invitation, then the proposal. What might come next? The hand of Death himself?

This curse. This damned _curse_.

“Armitage,” Brendol shouts. “I know you’re in there.”

There is no light in Hux’s home. The fireplace had gone out and he was unable to relight it, no matter how long he tried. How could Brendol know he was home? How could Brendol even know Hux was alive?

“Open this door right now or I will tear it down!”

Hux shivers and stands, dragging a blanket across the floor. He uses it as a cape, but it is already weighed down by the little icicles that had formed.

When Hux opens the front door, his father has the audacity to look disgusted at his son’s appearance.

“What have you done?” Brendol demands. Snow flecks his beard, his eyelashes, his hair. “Where is Pryde?”

“You knew,” Hux says, like stones falling from his mouth.

Brendol knew what Pryde was planning. Brendol knew that Pryde was some sort of wicked wizard.

Brendol knew what terrors awaited his son and he had done nothing to stop it. Why would he? He had never once protected his son.

“There is a storm gathering above your house,” Brendol spits. His saliva solidifies and falls to the ground as tiny flecks of ice. “People are getting sick. This is all your fault.”

Fury rises within Hux’s gut. It is the warmest he has felt in a long time.

“ _My_ fault?” he repeats.

All his life Brendol Hux blamed his own misfortune on others. When the lowly kitchen woman gave birth to a sickly, red-haired baby, that was due to her own negligence. When Maratelle did not produce any heirs, it was due to Maratelle’s malfunctioning body. When Armitage joined the war efforts and the Empire fell, it was somehow Armitage’s fault.

Even now, the curse that hangs over Hux’s head is somehow not Brendol’s fault.

Hux reaches out, his hands wrapping around Brendol’s throat. “It’s my fault, isn’t it?” he says, breath freezing against Brendol’s cheeks.

No words escapes Brendol’s mouth, just a gurgle of red spit. His skin grows black with frostbite. There is no fight within Brendol. Not now. Not ever again.

He dies far too easily.

Hux stands over the corpse of his father, breathing heavily.

Brendol Hux is dead.

The storm rages on.

How long before more of the Arkanians look for its source?

Hux shuffles backwards, dragging the corpse of his father inside of his house. Brendol Hux has always been a heavy burden. Now, with no life to him, somehow the burden grows heavier.

Hux covers the corpse with a woven blanket.

This curse was the cause of everything going wrong. This curse was put on him by Enric Pryde because Hux had the audacity to say _no_ to his advances.

What did Pryde think?

Did he think that Hux would weep and let himself be slaughtered by the other villagers? That Hux would give up on this life?

No.

Hux had fought for everything he has now. Tooth and nail and claw and wit until he had something that resembled a home.

He would not roll over and ready himself for death, not now when he carried a small fortune within his pocket. Not when he had been so close to leaving Arkanis and all of his suffering behind for the last time.

“Pryde,” Hux says through his chattering teeth. He would kill Pryde. He would break this curse. He would never return to Arkanis.

He could disappear. The world is vast and ever-changing.

He could still live.

(He wants so desperately to live.)

Hux leaves his home for perhaps the last time. He stumbles through the thick, unyielding snows, his hands held in front of him. He resembles a porcelain Nabooian doll.

It takes far too long for Hux to find Pryde’s home.

Above his head the storm swirls, following his every footfall.

The door is not locked. It falls away at the slightest off touch.

Inside, Pryde’s home is a mess. It is dark and, with the coming winter winds, nothing stays where it last was. Snow follows Hux inside and ruins several pieces of filmsi.

Hux searches every chest and every drawer until finally, finally, bless all of the stars in the sky, he finds a piece of flimsi detailing the property Pryde owns in Alderaan.

He holds this piece of flimsi to his chest like it is something precious.

Even as it freezes. Even as it grows stiff.

Even as he hears voices outside of the house.

“Pryde?” calls Maratelle. “Brendol?”

No. No. _No._ Hux had not wanted to see her.

The door is wide open. Maratelle steps through. She’s long gone grey. Stress, she always said. Sadness too. She stands there, holding a blanket around her shoulders, her hands covered by multiple pairs of gloves.

“Armitage…?” she says, uncertain.

What does she see when she looks at him? The pale skin. The limp, lifeless hair. His hands, stiffly holding onto flimsi that certainly did not belong to him. The curse. All she would see is the curse.

“What has happened?” asks Maratelle, her words almost drowned by the gust that chases Hux everywhere he goes. Snow settles along her blanket, along the gloves, along the exposed skin of her face.

Hux grits his teeth together. “Brendol is dead. Pryde has cursed me.”

Maratelle is like a statue then, still and silent for far too long. Briefly, Hux thinks his very presence has killed her. Then, in a quiet voice, she says, “You must leave. The others will kill you.”

Hux nods, barely dipping his chin.

Maratelle approaches him, footfalls soft against the ground. She squints, her eyes watering. She holds out her hand, as if she means to touch him. She doesn’t get so close before flinching away.

Long has Hux been used to a lack of kind, human touch. This one absence of touch bothers him more than the hundred times before. It seems like an added insult.

The one time his father’s wife wanted to share a kindness with him, the curse rebuffed her. He would laugh were he not so sad.

“I will go now,” Hux says.

Maratelle nods. She wraps the blanket around herself more tightly, shivering wildly.

She does not stop him as Hux brushes past her, out into the quiet of Arkanis. The sleepy village is awake, given that every fireplace has suddenly died and a fierce storm churns in the wrong season. The snow is thicker, heavier, turning to ice in places.

A few Arkanians have ventured out of their homes, dressed as warmly as possible, layers and layers of the thickest winter ponchos and blankets. Their breath fogs in the air.

Hux runs, his limbs stiff and heavy.

He _must_ run.

He has already killed a handful of people, their bodies prone against the mountains of snow. These people were not as guilty as Brendol, who had only ever encouraged Pryde’s unwanted and unnecessary courtship. Still, Hux does not want to find out how easily this frozen body of his will be shattered.

Quickly, a handful of folk gather makeshift weapons—rolling pins, shovels, stakes torn from fences.

Hux runs and does not look back.

He should have done so years and years ago.

*

Jakku is almost a blessing. Hux only stops running once sand replaces solid ground underfoot. He collapses his hands and knees and looks up, into the vast, empty sky.

It would not be empty for long, not with the curse that follows behind every footstep Hux takes.

Where before the heat of Jakku had been oppressive and inescapable, now it is less than the buzz of an insect at his neck. Hux does not move until snow begins to fall, curling beneath the leg of a fallen AT-AT for shelter.

Rey finds him eventually, approaching with some hesitance. “…Hux?” she says, after a small eternity. “Is that you?”

She had not even recognized him, so changed by this curse.

“Leave!” Hux shouts without uncurling from this temporary shelter.

Rey is not dressed for the cold that follows him, for the cold that kills. No one would be—certainly not in _Jakku_. When he digs his nails into his palms, blood rises only sluggishly, half frozen.

She walks away. She must!

Brendol could die. Half of Arkanis could die. Pryde will die.

 _Rey_ must be spared of his _ridiculous_ curse.

Hux stays there, curled up against the sand for a small eternity. Ice beads along the ground. Never does it melt. Wind howls. The storm rages on. It begins snowing in earnest for the first time in a long while in Jakku.

A shadow pools around Hux’s feet.

“Go away, Rey,” Hux grinds out. He had thought of her better. All scavengers look out for themselves first. They must, for who else would care for one in Jakku?

The shadow does not move.

Hux looks up.

It is not Rey this time, it is something worse. The man before him is paler than pale, a scar running over his brow, dark hair flowing to his shoulders. He is dressed all in black—robes, cape, gloves, not at all suited for Jakku’s normal climate. He is so still he may as well not be alive.

He is not breathing.

“Who are you?” Hux demands, narrowing his eyes.

This man does not even flinch at the cold.

“I am Kylo Ren,” the man says. “I am a Chooser of Death.”

Hux feels so much colder then. He gets up and stumbles away. “Fuck you,” Hux snarls. “I’m not going to die before I have my revenge.”

Kylo Ren smiles, slowly, cruelty shining in his eyes. “So be it,” he says, voice like the song of mountains moving.

Hux walks away, his heart thudding painfully in his chest. It is a reminder that he still has a heart, useless as it might be.

Alderaan awaits. Pryde awaits. Soon he would shake the city with the force of his vengeance.

*

He walks for a long time, but then again time is meaningless.

Walking and

Walking and

Walking

Beneath the ceaseless sky.

Hux never stops. He never rests. He is beyond hunger, beyond thirst. The only thing that binds him to this earth is his vengeance.

That, and the Chooser of Death who follows his every footstep, as close as the curse and just as cold.

Alderaan looks strange now. Snow accompanies Hux’s first steps into the city. The market is torn asunder, goods torn away by a particularly strong gust of wind.

Hux does not care for the cries of Alderaanians. He does not care for the silhouette of the Chooser appearing on every other corner.

He goes to the household listed on the deed, but does not find Pryde.

He finds several servants, who are surprised by his appearance and the strong winds that follow.

“Where is Pryde?” Hux demands them.

The servants shake, snow gathering in the folds of their clothing. The bravest one says, “The palace! He is courting Queen Organa!”

How brave of Pryde. If he could not have Hux, he would aim for someone even _better_ , someone whose lofty position should protect them from this sort of nonsense.

“Leave now,” Hux tells the servants.

The three of them run out with only the clothes on their backs. Once they are gone, Hux takes joy in wrecking the house with all the force of winter that follows him.

Kylo Ren appears only in the corner of Hux’s eyes. He does not speak to the specter, lest he invoke its foul magic. He is not ready to die. Not yet. He had so much life left to live, so much life that he had yet to experience.

All he had to do was slaughter Enric Pryde.

Snow gathers thickly, making it difficult to walk through Alderaan’s many streets. At least it is not busy. What few people that remain outside remain prone against the snowbanks, still and quiet. Dead, just like those of Arkanis.

At the center of Alderaan is a great palace, like a diamond jutting out, into the sky.

Hux goes there, holding himself close. He shivers uncontrollably.

Pryde had been powerful once. He still wanted power.

If he could not have a youthful, breakable thing for a husband, would he settle for the most powerful woman in the world? The Queen who had defeated the Empire?

Courting Organa, Hux thinks. _Ha_!

Organa was a smart woman. She would execute him.

Hux simply had to convince her that he’d be a suitable executioner.

It takes a small eternity for Hux to arrive at the palace doors. Though shut, they do not remain secure for long. Hux is stubborn. He can make use of this curse. He can pretend to be strong when, for countless years, he had been as slender as a piece of flimsi and about as useful in combat.

When Hux raises a hand, all of winter answers his call.

Servants scatter about, covering their heads. Some of them might scream. Hux does not care. No one stops him. No one can. Hux wanders through the palace, bringing with him all of winter.

He finds Pryde within a library. Beside him is a woman. Pryde encroaches on the woman’s space, holding onto one of her hands with two of his own.

The very same woman he had sold the kyber crystal too.

Queen Leia Organa.

Hux ruins a fortune’s worth of books printed with actual flimsi with half a breath. Snow twists in the air, settling on every vaguely horizontal surface.

“Enric Pryde,” Hux says. “Lift this curse.”

Pryde’s eyes are golden, like the scales of some sea-dragon of legend. He smiles, as though everything is perfectly pleasant and then says, “No.”

Leia Organa is stiff backed and stern. She pulls away from Pryde’s embrace, as though she had been burnt. “I have nothing for you here,” she tells Pryde. “And I see you have brought your problems to my household.”

“The kyber crystal,” Pryde says, deceptively soft. “It belongs to me.”

“ _No_ ,” Leia Organa says again, this time more forcefully. “See yourself and your would-be-murderer out.”

Hux swallows. Leia Organa knows. She doesn’t _disapprove_ of his intentions.

Pryde stands. He smiles, but it is something strange. There is no warmth in his eyes. There cannot be any warmth to his eyes.

“Marry me,” Pryde tells Leia Organa.

“ _No_ ,” Leia Organa says once again. She does not get up. “You are a cruel man to misuse the ways of the Force in this manner. Leave now, while you still can.”

Pryde sneers. This is the only facial expression that sits well on his face. “You will regret this,” he says and then, once again, he vanishes in a swirl of thick mist.

“Kriff,” Hux says, the word freezing upon his tongue. _Not again._

Leia Organa raises a single brow at him. “It appears a lot has happened since the last I saw you,” she says calmly.

“Why does Pryde want the kyber crystal?” Hux demands of her.

The Queen of Alderaan takes this in stride, where, truthfully, she should execute him too. “Regardless of his purpose, it would not end well,” she says. She looks him up and down, unimpressed. “It looks like he has placed an awful curse on you.”

Hux shudders, the cold around him feels colder still. His bones ache. “Can you free me of this curse?” he asks. He is not so foolish as to not recognize someone capable of using the Force for a third time.

Leia Organa shakes her head, her lips pressed together into a fine line. “I did not study the ways of the Force,” she says.

Hux refuses to fall to despair. Instead, he rages. “Then why was a kyber crystal so necessary to _you_?”

He has no right to speak this way to anyone, least of all the Queen of Alderaan, but he is beyond caring for propriety.

“My son died in the war,” Leia Organa says, her chin tilted up. “I have nothing left of him, not even his sabre.”

Hux blinks, taken aback. He says nothing.

Now despair seems more tempting.

“My brother,” says Leia Organa. Frost beads along her clothing. Despite her proximity to him, Leia Organa does not shiver. Not even a little bit. “Luke Skywalker. He is a Master of the Force. He might—”

“Luke Skywalker has been missing for _years_. He cannot help me,” Hux says. He does her a kindness and does not say that Luke Skywalker must be dead. How much would this woman have to suffer while still living?

But she was the Queen of Alderaan and he was no one in particular.

 _No one can help me,_ this he knows.

He must find Pryde. Then he must kill Pryde. He must be the one to free himself of this awful curse.

It is simple. That is all there is.

Hux does not acknowledge the shining hurt in Leia Organa’s eyes. He leaves the palace, frightening yet another servant with his ghastly appearance, and then he leaves Alderaan.

He does not know where to go next—all he knows is that he cannot remain, lest the Alderaanians decide to kill this monster he has become.

*

Hux walks without knowing where he is to go next. He has hinged all of his hopes on Alderaan and slaying Pryde there.

It didn’t happen that way.

And so Hux finds himself in a forest, its branches heavy with the weight of all winter. He kneels down amongst the roots of the tallest tree, curling away from the cold. The cold is inescapable, embedded deep within his bones, digging its way through like roots in dirt.

“You haven’t finished yet,” says Kylo Ren. The wraith appears before him holding a wicked blade, blood dripping down its sharp edge.

Hux snarls at Ren. “Isn’t that obvious?”

Ren does not stay silent as Hux would have hoped. “Why not give up?” he asks. He stinks of ozone, like a lightning strike. The air around him seems to vibrate.

Hux’s eyes droop. He is _tired_. He is beyond exhaustion.

Ren kneels beside him, spreading out his cloak. Warmth emanates from the cloak, like a small spark of white fire. It’s the most warmth Hux has felt since Pryde had cursed him. “You will no longer feel cold once you are in Death’s embrace.”

“You,” Hux says, standing up so quickly that he becomes dizzy. “You will not trick me! I am not ready to die. I have not yet had my vengeance.”

“How is that my problem?” asks Ren.

“What sort of Chooser of Death are you?” Hux asks. Holding himself close, he begins to walk. “Would you truly take someone from this world before they are done with their life?”

Ren follows close behind. “You don’t even know where you are going.”

“I do,” says Hux. “Away from you.”

Ren snorts. “Where you go, I will follow. These are the terms of the curse placed on you.”

“You know of it?”

“It’s hard not to.”

Hux glares at Ren. “If Death must follow, then could Death not be kind and rid the world of Enric Pryde?”

Ren smiles with all of his teeth. His eyes are a pale shade of amber. “When has Death ever been kind?” he asks, so very softly.

Hux shoves away. “I am not ready to die,” he says yet again. “I will never be ready to die, so long as Pryde draws breath. This is not something I can compromise on.”

This, at least, serves to catch Ren’s attention.

“What are you suggesting?” asks Ren.

Hux continues to walk, never looking back. “That you lend me your aid, o great and noble Chooser of Death.”

He wants to wash out his mouth with soap and water after speaking so sweetly to something so rotten.

Ren’s footsteps make no noise until he is before Hux again, just shy of catching Hux by his throat. “You are insufferable,” he says. “Stubborn. Arrogant.”

Hux raises a brow. He has been called all this and more by more important people.

Ren seethes. “Besides,” he says. “You are going the wrong way.”

*

Kylo Ren is little more than a ghost. He leaves behind no footprints behind in the snow. He does not breathe or eat or even sleep. But Kylo Ren is warm where Hux is not, even as something like a Chooser of Death.

It is a betrayal of the highest sort.

Kylo Ren brings him north, avoiding all signs of civilization. He is a relentless force of nature, one that does not exhaust like Hux does.

A weakness that the curse hadn’t stripped him of, but instead made worse.

The cold weighs down Hux’s bones. The raging winter winds that follow overhead only adds to this weight.

“Enough,” Hux says. There is ice along the marrow of his bones. There is ice replacing the blood that flows in his veins. “Enough.”

Ren tilts his head, looking at him oddly, but waits.

On shaking limbs, Hux curls up amongst a snowdrift. It offers little protection from the wind, none from the cold that engulfs him. He cannot start a fire—he’s tried to do so before and has only ever failed with his frozen, clumsy fingers.

“When you are dead, the cold won’t bother you. Nothing will bother you,” Ren tells him once again. As if hearing this will make him more likely to surrender his _life_.

Hux snorts. “If I die, my vengeance won’t be achieved. I would become a wrathful wraith before I would allow Pryde to live comfortably.”

Ren stands over him, his dark cloak pooling in Hux’s lap. Hux grasps at the fine fabric with his fingers, clutching it close to his chest. The warmth radiates throughout him, like the sun is caressing his cheek.

Hands, hands, so many invisible hands.

“Why?” Hux asks him.

“Because,” Ren says, as though it is simple. In a way, it _is_. “You cannot die before you have your vengeance.”

Hux does not thank him. He sleeps, falling fitfully into dreams.

*

When he wakes again, Ren has not moved from his position, guarding Hux. Further, Ren has hardly stirred. He blinks and says, “Will you continue your journey?”

“Yes,” Hux says, his voice hoarse and raw. “ _Yes_.”

Ren leads him now where before he had been but a shadow. There is a purpose to each movement. He knows where Pryde is, this Hux is certain.

Further north, the forests give way to mountains. Ice rests across the mountain peaks, ice that had not been brought forth by Hux’s curse. It’s almost a relief to see, until that old ice is covered and the storm rages on.

Hux comes across the dead bodies of animals—birds of all sizes, a single hare, a few goats, and even a solitary snow leopard. All of whom had suffered, their bodies burned by the unnatural cold.

It is… disheartening to see.

He had not cared when he killed his father. His father had been cruel to so many people. These animals however…

Hux looks away.

“Where are you taking me?” asks Hux.

“Exegol,” says Ren.

“That does not sound familiar,” Hux says quietly.

“It won’t. Not to you,” says Ren, in lieu of a proper answer or even an explanation. “But he will be there.”

“How do you know?”

“I am a Chooser of Death,” Ren says simply. “It would not be rash to say that his death has nearly arrived.” He looks at Hux when he says this, his amber gaze unwavering.

Hux nods then and feels a heady sense of relief.

Pryde will die. The curse will be broken. He will feel the tips of his fingers and his nose. He will feel fire’s divine warmth and the satisfying bitterness of tarine tea. Hux will be allowed to live on still.

Never again will he take these luxuries for granted.

Hux nods again and swallows, but his throat is tight. He feels as though he cannot breathe.

“Careful now,” Ren says then. “The future that will unfold is not certain. We are standing on shifting sands.”

Hux snorts. He knows all about sand.

Exegol is nothing like Jakku.

Both are wastelands, but at least Jakku had _some_ life, some warmth, in the creatures and scavengers that traversed the sands. Exegol is dead. Deader than dead. Not even a ghost remains. The ground crumbles beneath his steps. It looks less like sand and more like… ash.

There are great machines of war only half buried. They are completely untouched since their deaths. Not even one scavenger passed through this place.

The thought leaves him ill at ease.

“What happened here?” asks Hux, voice quiet.

“A war was lost,” Ren says simply.

Hux shakes his head. He too had participated in the war. Never had he even _heard_ of this land. “Why haven’t I heard of the Battle of Exegol then?” he asks.

“Because you were not mean to,” says Ren, because he is a cryptic bastard.

He walks forwards on this summit of crumpling ash. All around him the mountain faces loom, like the faces of Arkanis’s High Command, always whispering and plotting.

Here, Ren’s footfalls disturb the pale ash, revealing streaks of red below.

Hux watches, perturbed, but never does Ren acknowledge this.

This earthly realm is bleeding. Hux shakes himself of this stupor and strides quickly, so that he might not be left behind.

The air is still. There are no animals, no plants.

Everything has died and long since decayed.

Ren stops before one particular Stardestroyer. It looks no different than any other.

“Here,” says Ren, extending his arm, finger pointed in the direction of the Stardestroyer. “He awaits.

Hux clambers onto the durasteel surface of this great fallen machine of war. Ice solidifies against the Stardestroyer’s surface is whirls and curves. Hux marches on.

When he presses his hand to transparisteel windows, they frost over before breaking, large shards of glass and ice falling inside of the ship. Ren follows him, holding out that bloody sword.

Pity that he had never used the damn thing to make Hux’s life easier.

The halls are dim. The lights would have flickered ahead if the ship were alive. But it is dead. Like everything else in accursed Exegol. Frost creeps along the floors, along the walls, glowing faintly.

Hux can hear nothing but the sound of his footsteps and the rattle of breath in his chest.

Ren is more of a presence than a person. He is a wisp of dark fabric, the glint of cold steal, the glitter of a red gem at its heart.

Hux follows this shadow to the heart of the great machine.

Pryde is already half-buried within the heart of machinery, all tangled up in wiring.

He must feel the cold before the end. He _must_.

Hux grabs him by his ankle, cold flittering up the older man’s body, surging through his skin, his bones, until the cold sinks into his heart.

It isn’t satisfying, not in the way that Hux had imagined. Pryde dies quickly, nearly painlessly, without even fumbling for his magic.

Hux collapses onto his knees.

He breathes. In. Out. In. Out.

When he lifts his hands, they are still beyond pale, his nails violet with cold. He waits a long time to see if this endless cold will dissipate.

It does not.

Snow gathers around his ankles, around his knees. Still, the snow gathers, until it nearly buries him alive.

Hux shuts his eyes. He does not weep.

Ren draws closer. “Are you ready?” he asks.

Hux nods and reaches out for the hem of Ren’s cloak.

*

In Ren’s arms, he is warm again.

 _Oh scavenger, you are already dead,_ some voice inside him echoes.

*

Hux wakes with water in his mouth. He flails his arms wildly through heavy, murky waters.

All of the children of Arkanis know how to swim, even perhaps before they learn to walk. Their lullabies and bedtime stories are of Pearl Diver, and of how the ocean gave its treasures to Arkanians. How the ocean is yet another mother, one who loves all of her children.

But this ocean is neglectful.

Hux’s limbs grow heavy then slack. The water tastes of nothing but salt.

Suddenly, he is hauled up through the heaving waves and pulled onto a boat.

Ren watches him passively as Hux wretches up his lung.

“Are you done?” Ren asks him.

Hux shivers, but his clothes are not weighed down by water. He isn’t even slightly damp. He looks over the boat’s brim and narrows his eyes. He sees two worlds at once—neither of which making sense entirely, neither of which capable of existing concurrently. In one reality, the water is pitch black, where no light can reach it. In another reality, there are bodies, an endless stream of bodies one piled atop the other.

“What is this?” asks Hux, trying desperately to comprehend.

“This is the river,” Ren answers. He removes his cape and draws it over Hux’s sad, trembling form. “Be still.” He stands then, at the bow of the boat, and raises his sword.

Blood wells at the sword’s hilt, gathering around the embedded ruby. When Ren raises his sword, the blood follows its cold steel. One by one, crimson droplets fall into the river, bright against the grey of so many corpses.

Hux gathers the cloak around himself, fingers digging into its rough fabric. He is no longer cold, yes, but had it been worth it? Had any of this struggle been necessary? Around him is some horror he could not have ever imagined.

“You lied to me,” Hux says.

“You’ll find that I didn’t,” Ren replies. “Are you not warm?”

Hux sneers. “This isn’t enough,” he says. “This is not enough for me.”

Perhaps now he realizes that nothing that Ren can offer him would ever be enough.

*

They go down the swollen, throbbing river. It smells sweet, of cinnamon and sugar. It smells like overripe fruit. Something is rotting. It may as well be Hux.

The river dries all at once.

Around them, there is the dark.

Ren stands and exits the boat, one foot after the other, as though the murky, unreality of the world was not a hinderance of any sort. He holds his sword aloft, that bleeding gem at its heart sending feeble light all around them, bathing them in red.

The light dies not too far from its source.

Ren hold out his hand.

Hux takes it and allows himself to be helped onto semi-solid ground.

“What is this?” Hux asks him.

“Death.”

Death is empty past the point of scarcity. Death is dark and silent.

Death is _frightening_ in its alienness.

There is a throne at the heart of all this emptiness. On this throne sits a man. It is a similar situation to the river from before. Hux sees two men at once, one overlying the other. One is a monstrosity—larger than life and wrapped in layers of gold. The other is decrepit, an old man drowning in black robes.

It hurts to look at him directly.

Surrounding this throne is a host of others dressed in dark robes like Ren’s, each one bearing great weapons. Six other Choosers waiting for his eternal soul.

Ren kneels then, his sword digging into soft ground. “Master,” he says, voice carrying only a whisper of its normal menace. “Death. I bring before you Armitage Hux, he who was cursed to be as cold as his heart, he who death follows.”

“Well done,” says Death.

Death rises from his throne and approaches. The scene shifts. No longer are they in a throne room. The room around them is equally sparse and clean. All around him, it smells of disinfectant and bacta.

Hux is lying down in one of the interrogation chairs of old. His arms and legs are held down on either side of him. He swallows down his fear.

“What do you want?” he says, snarling at the grey face of Death.

“I want for nothing,” says Death, his eyes a bright and burning gold. He splits open Hux’s chest and grasps Hux’s heart within pale, gnarled hands. It doesn’t feel real—like another layer of unreality, just like the river, just like the throne room.

In Death’s hands is a chunk of ice, one that thumped to some strange, impossible rhythm. He examines it carefully before crushing it to powder.

Hux screams and screams until he has no more voice.

When he blinks again, he is in a receiving chamber. Every wall is covered with rich, dark red curtains, ones that fall all the way to the ground. The audience has not moved. Not even a little. Ren is still kneeling, his dark hair obscuring his face.

Hux collapses on the ground on his hands and knees. His wrists are rubbed raw and red.

The choosers of the dead surround him on every side. He hadn’t noticed them move from their positions.

“We are cursed,” says Ren, hand upon Hux’s cheek. “Our names are lost.”

Ren and his fellows become ash, shifting between Hux’s fingers.

Hux gasps, his hands digging through soft earth. Death sits before him, on that overlarge throne of his. “Release me,” Hux demands. “I don’t want to be here.”

Death chuckles. It resounds against every wall.

“You have died,” says Death. “You have accepted this fate and crossed over the river. There is no going back for you, Armitage Hux.”

Hux lifts his chin and thinks of those old stories so popular in Arkanis. Of the Pearl Diver and Death. She had been pitied and given several great tasks to undergo. The Pearl Diver had been successful and had been returned to her beloved ocean.

Would this Death be capable of pity?

“You were cursed too,” Hux says between his teeth. “You have lost your name, o kindly Death. Let me find it for you. Let me find the names of all your Choosers. Then return me.”

Death laughs once again, likely at being called kindly. “Is that so?” he says.

Hux stares him down, unwilling to even blink. He had killed his father, then Enric Pryde. He had tried desperately to break this curse of his and failed just as desperately.

He can almost feel the thump of his heart within his chest, so desperate to claw itself out and return to the prison of Death’s hands.

“Very well,” says Death. He is still smiling, even now, like Hux amuses him. Like Hux is an animal caught in a trap, ready to gnaw off his own limb.

…he may as well be.

“Armitage Hux, he whose heart is as cold as ice, will attempt to find the names of my Choosers and of this personage,” says Death, stretching out a withered arm towards those men draped in black, then himself. Kylo Ren does not look up from where he kneels. Hux doesn’t know why he had expected this. “Do you find this agreeable?”

Like he has a choice.

“Yes,” Hux says instead, lifting his chin to meet Death’s eyes.

Death laughs perhaps for the final time. The sound is grating on him by now. He had never wanted to be the object of mockery as a child—but even in death, there was someone to find fault in him.

“Very well,” says Death. “You have three days.”

*

But there is something else.

Days aren’t days. Hours flow differently.

Time is strange and just as unreal as everything else.

*

Death is a large house overlain against the throne room. In this plane of existence does Hux wander.

Ren takes him by his sleeve and leads him through meandering halls. Every wall is dark, painted pitch. The lights overhead are electric and harsh. Only the sounds of Ren’s boots against the cool ground exist within this world.

Ren opens a door for him and gestures for Hux to go in first.

“How do I know this is not a trap?” Hux demands, all but hissing.

“You won’t know,” Ren says, sneering in return. “But you have nothing more to lose.”

Hux does not look away.

Ren is right.

Ren does not need to know this.

After a moment, Ren lets out a puff of air. He enters the room first, throwing him a look over his shoulder. For a long moment, his gaze becomes golden and burning, scalding his skin.

Hux follows him after into a library that should not exist.

The room stretches out in all directions endlessly. There are shelves upon shelves of books—real books made of paper and cloaked in leather.

Hux halts there at the entrance, struck by the enormity of this room.

“What is this?” Hux asks faintly.

“The only chance you’ll get to return to life,” Ren tells him. There is an ugly expression across his face, caught somewhere between a sneer and a glare. It suits him. “Any more questions?”

Hux bristles. “Listen,” he says, sneering right back at this so called glorious Chooser of Death. He sees nothing glorious, nothing magnificent. Just another man drowning in dark robes. “I am to look for _your_ lost name and the names of your brothers. I should think that you would want me to break your curse, but perhaps I was mistaken—”

Ren catches Hux’s wrist, his thumb idly tracing a circle across one of Hux’s dark veins. Ren can feel his heartbeat, for better or for worse. “It isn’t that,” he says. Then he swallows.

Perhaps he is ashamed of his poor behavior, Hux thinks, noting how red Ren’s ears had grown.

“It…” Ren pauses. His face is horrifically red. “This room contains the records of those who have died. Their names. Their stories. What awaits them.”

Hux’s gaze flickers between Kylo Ren’s face and the sword at his side. He has several suspicions about the bleeding gem at its heart. He voices none of them.

“And?” Hux says, for that fact is not sufficient of a reason for Kylo Ren to grow embarrassed.

“These records are not records in the same way that this library is not a library,” Ren tells him. “Every record is a fragment of a soul whose corporeal body has died.”

Hux nods slowly. He isn’t entirely impressed by this story.

Ren exhales. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me,” he says sharply. “It is true.”

“I never said I didn’t believe you,” Hux says in turn, raising his head.

“We both know the truth.”

If Kylo Ren were not one of Death’s respected and fearsome collectors of the dead, Hux would say that he was pouting.

(…Even still, he had to admit, if only to himself, that Ren was pouting. Like a spoiled child so used to having his way.)

Hux has always appreciated books. Call it remnants of childish solidarity when the worst insult his father come up with was _thin as a slip of paper and just as useless_.

He reaches out and grabs the closest one. As soon as his fingers touch its spine—

_A girl. A dress. A shoe. Her prince didn’t find her. She was another casualty of war._

Hux draws back.

“You see now?” says Ren, baring all of his teeth. “This library exists as a gathering of souls. Broken souls. Mere fragments. The lost, the broken.”

Hux takes a deep breath. It rattles in his chest, like something has come loose. “Tell me more,” he says to Ren, his eyes burning.

This, Ren had not expected. But he opens his mouth and speaks.

Three days Death had given to him.

Time goes. Hux is unsure of how fast and how far. Still, he has his wits about him. He checks the histories of the recently dead, all those that the war had touched.

Blades. Blasters. Great machines of war.

Orbital bombardments.

The deaths of stars.

Hux’s head aches when he witnesses the destruction of Scarif. He would have fallen to his knees if Ren had not moved quickly, hand upon the small of Hux’s back.

“Why?” Hux asks, his voice hoarse.

He had seen the Death Star before it had been destroyed by Luke Skywalker. It had been beautiful, an agglomeration of machinery and pure kyber.

He had not seen its results. Brutal efficiency.

“Why does Scarif have its own entry?” he asks.

Ren doesn’t quite meet his gaze. He is silent for too long. Then he wets his lips and says, “With the Death Star, the Emperor inflicted a wound in the Force.”

“A wound in… sorcery?” Hux repeats, doubtful.

Ren’s eyes flash gold. His sword bleeds. He smiles, slowly and terrible. “Does that sound so impossible?” he asks. “You were cursed to be as cold as your heart by one of the Empire’s soldiers, a wizard now deceased. You walk the halls of Death and you doubt what is right before your nose.”

Hux bristles before Ren’s words sink all the way in.

“The Emperor,” Hux says slowly. “What do you know of him?”

“The same as you, surely.” Ah, now Ren’s tone grows scathing. Bitter.

“Humor me,” says Hux.

Hux has several suspicions, but he will hold them close to his chest until he has enough information to support them.

Ren looks so young, Hux realizes. So young to be a Chooser of Death. So young to have already died.

The Chooser of Death is so very close to him, all but looming over his body. His dark hair falls around his face like curtains. Ren’s breath is hot against Hux’s cheek. If Hux closed his eyes and pretended, he would not have said either of them were dead.

Ren shifts away from Hux, leaving Hux to miss his overwhelming warmth. He curses his own weakness. How starved was he of human touch that Kylo Ren became a viable candidate for comfort?

“The Emperor,” Ren says, tongue wetting his lips. “He was greedy. He wanted the world. He didn’t win, struck down by his own heir.”

What Kylo Ren does not tell him is if the Emperor is dead.

Hux frowns and looks away. Instead of meeting Ren’s burning gaze, he reaches out and grabs another book.

_A wolf runs in a forest, fierce and free, all teeth and claws and heat. A wolf catches its prey, tearing through the sweet rabbit’s throat. Hot blood falls against overturned snow, like a rush of rubies._

_The wolf waits patiently as its cubs come wobbling after the kill._

_Together, they eat._

Hux shakes his head, mouth thick with copper. He takes a step forwards, stumbles, and catches himself on another book.

_He is on his knees, gravel digging into his bones. Around him a village burns. He can scarcely hear the screams._

_“Look how old you’ve become,” says the Knight before him, draped in dark, heavy fabrics. His breath rattles through his metal mask._

_“Something far worse has happened to you,” he says, words falling out of his mouth._

_“You know what I’ve come for.”_

_“I know where you come from.”_

_When he says this the Knight raises up his sabre and bears down. The last thing he sees is the red glow of kyber._

Hux swallows back bile. Ren steadies him.

“What did you see?” asks Ren, voice low.

“Enough.”

Hux’s voice has been eaten away. Now it’s a mere rattle in his chest. He draws away from Ren’s touch.

“Then why look for more?”

Hux shakes his head and presses his hand to the spine of a book.

_A girl kneels beside a fireplace, drawing out peas and lentils one by one from the ash. She weeps, too, the tear tracks the only clean patches of skin. Her hands are shaking._

_In the depths of winter, this servant has lost her shoes._

And again.

_There is a prince in a grand, empty castle. All of his servants have been bound into motionless statues, their souls trapped within cold marble and metal. Their eyes sightless._

_There is a prince, whose castle is destroyed by an orbital bombardment._

And again.

_He sees the Knight from before, that same sabre held in his hand, still drowning in his clothing. And, across from him, is someone all too familiar._

_Rey._

_She’s a drowned rat, her hair loose and wild around her head. She holds a sword, a gleaming kyber crystal at its heart. It’s far too heavy for her. It’s too great a burden for a child._

_“Join me,” the Knight tells her, holding out a hand. “We can rule this world.”_

_“Don’t do this,” Rey says. She’s younger than Hux had ever known her. A child. Lost. Afraid._

_Hux walks on trembling legs, putting himself between the two—as if that would ever help._

_“No, no!” The Knight shouts at her. “You’re still holding on! Let go! You want to know the truth about your parents? They’re cowards. Traitors. Thieves. They dared betray the Emperor!”_

_Rey grits her teeth, her little face transformed by anger. And then she strikes out, her sword cutting through Hux, striking the Knight’s face._

Hux falls down, a heap of books falling around him.

_“You can’t hide, Rey. Not from me.”_

_“You’ll die first.”_

_“Who is she?”_

_“Join me.”_

_“Join me.”_

_“Join me.”_

_“There’s so much I want to tell you.”_

_“You cannot hide forever.”_

_“I will not fight you.”_

_“Never!”_

Hux vomits up clear bile. He heaves, choking on every breath.

Warmth surrounds him—that warmth of Ren seeping into his bones. Ren has removed his cloak and drawn it across Hux’s shoulders. Even now the Chooser of Death holds back Hux’s hair.

“What did you see?” asks Ren.

Hux looks at him, unblinking, and lets his gaze trail across Ren’s naked, bleeding blade. The scar itself should be enough to confirm his suspicions. “You,” he says. This he is sure.

Ren’s mouth parts, but he says nothing, surprise written across his face. “…Me,” he repeats.

“I haven’t found your name yet,” Hux says, drawing the cloak tighter to himself. He shivers involuntarily, unable to control his body’s reactions. “How do you know Rey?”

Ren blinks. His eyes go from gold to warm amber before returning to gold. “I don’t know,” he says.

Hux pauses.

Ren sounds _afraid_.

“Rey,” Ren repeats. “ _Rey_.”

Then Ren shakes his head, his brows furrowed low on his face. Hux almost pities the man. Almost.

“The girl…” Ren says slowly. He grits his teeth and then affixes his gaze on Hux. He reaches out, hesitantly, and draws his hand across Hux’s wrist, tracing what would of been Hux’s pulse point, if his heart were still beating. “There is something I must tell you.”

But the world breaks.

A strong gust of wind blows away the library that surrounds them, spilling them bodily onto the floor of Death’s throne room. 

Death smiles, as ghastly as ever. “One day has passed. Rest now. Two more remain.”

*

For a long time, Hux had thought of death as a long sleep. Everything would cease at once. There would be no dreams. But there would also be no pain, no hunger, no thirst. In death, he would never be unhappy.

This death resembles those unhappy, winding dreams that visited when he was ill. Those dreams where the world was nonsensical and strange. Those dreams that only ever left him exhausted.

Hux is left in a grand bedroom, far too big for his person. His whole life in Arkanis could fit within these rooms.

The bed sits in the center of the room, tall and imposing. There are an unnecessary amount of pillows atop it. Gauzy curtains spill down from the banisters.

He ignores this strange luxury and explores the room.

Without Ren at his side he is… well, he wouldn’t say he is lonely exactly. But, certainly, it would not be remiss to say that Ren’s presence was a comfort.

There are no personal possessions within this room. The closet is bare. There are no knickknacks on the tables or shelves. Even the adjoining bathroom is strangely bereft, with no bath products lining the ivory bathtub.

“Why?” Hux asks no one in particular.

Why any of this farce?

Where would he go if he slept? What if he slept through his allotted days?

He could not shut his eyes. If he even blinked the image of Kylo Ren haunted him, a furrow between his brows.

Hux worries his thumbnail with his teeth, pacing the length of the bedroom. He pauses abruptly, scolding himself. Pacing was unseemly. So he dug his nails into the palms of his hands instead.

His nails come away bloodied.

Very slowly, Hux makes his way to a window and draws the curtains back.

Outside of the window is the universe. All stars and teeth. It screams.

An imperceptible amount of time passes. Hux’s hand falls. So do the curtains. All of him shaking from bitter cold, Hux retreats to the bed and admits defeat.

*

When Hux wakes, he has Ren’s cloak clenched within his fists. It smells of ash and burning ozone. His mouth is tacky and sweet. He feels as though he has overslept— _surely_ , Death could take advantage of his weakness and allow him to sleep through the allotted time.

It wouldn’t make sense otherwise.

Hux parts the gauzy curtains of the bed and halts.

He is not alone in this room. One of the Choosers of Death is here, kneeling beside a table. A tray sits atop it with several covered dishes.

How long had the Chooser waited, head bowed, on his knees? Was this a punishment? Or perhaps was it a trap?

Hux joins the other and says, “Now then, what do we have here?”

The Chooser stirs. His mask is a grid. No expression leaks through. Even through this mask, Hux can feel the Chooser’s gaze land heavily upon Ren’s cloak, now wrapped around Hux’s shoulders.

The tray is presented, various dishes piping hot.

Hux can smell a light broth his mother had favored for breakfast. The bread is plain, but unmistakably it comes from the kitchens of the Academy, with many seeds embedded into its soft flesh. There is a small side of fermented shark, a delicacy more than anything.

“This feels like a bribe,” he says suspiciously.

The Chooser inclines his head. At that angle, his helmet glints. Hux catches fragments of his own reflection, but turns away.

“Can you speak?”

The Chooser’s silence is answer enough.

Hux snorts but takes the bribe. He’s not that upright to deny himself of these earthly pleasures.

The Chooser waits with him, not even sitting at the table, but at Hux’s feet, like some sort of overgrown dog. He does not stir. He does not eat. Hux is not entirely sure if he even breathes.

Hux lets his spoon clatter against the empty bowl. Everything had tasted as he remembers, so very long ago. It is like he is eating his memories, devouring them whole.

“Now,” Hux says. “Remove your mask.”

The Chooser does so, without even a little hesitation. The face that looks back at him is unfamiliar. A young man, perhaps halfway through his twenties. Perhaps in his early thirties. Nothing too special, but at least Hux knows that the Chooser, like Ren, had been human. Once. Dark hair. Sharp eyes.

“I haven’t seen you in the memories,” Hux says.

Not yet, he thinks to himself.

If possible, the Chooser deflates a little, tucking his chin against his chest.

Hux sighs. Were all of the Choosers of Death so ridiculous?

“I will find your name,” Hux tells this ridiculous Chooser. “I will find the name of each Chooser. I will find Death’s name and bring it to him. Now, tell me, where is Kylo Ren?”

*

Kylo Ren, it turns out, had been waiting for him in the library.

“I must tell you something,” Ren says, once they are alone. The scent of smoke curls around him, stronger than before. He smells like something burning. “Before I forget.”

“I am listening,” says Hux. He feels his heart lurch in his chest, but surely that must be something else. His heart is dust. He is dead.

“Rey is the granddaughter of the Emperor,” Ren says. “She is the offspring of the Emperor’s son. But the Emperor also had—”

The world splits in two and Hux falls upon his hands and knees, pain lancing through his chest.

He lands onto an Imperial interrogation chair, an IT-O Interrogator covering in the air before him. It emits a bright red glow, the brightest color in all of death.

The IT-O Interrogator lets out several warbles.

All Hux hears is his heartbeat thumping inside of his head.

The IT-O Interrogator droid has many tools in its repertoire. He would know. He had studied their ruthless efficiency while he attended the Academy.

Now he gets yet another firsthand lesson in how it might feel.

The IT-O Interrogator utilizes its bone fragmenters on him first. Then it moves on to use a flesh peeler. Once some unknown portion of time passes, the IT-O Interrogator moves on to Brendol Hux’s favored tool, the electroshock nerve probe.

Hux bears it all.

He has to. He must.

There is no other option.

The IT-O Interrogator droid presents him with no questions, no demands.

Hux shuts his eyes and presses the back of his head against the chair. He will never scream.

When he opens his eyes again, he in the library once again, a hairsbreadth away from Ren.

“What happened?” Hux asks, his voice hoarse.

Ren shakes his head. “Punishment,” he says, lips curled around the word. He all but snarls, like a wild animal. His eyes shine a brighter yellow. His sword bleeds.

Hux looks down, staring at the puddle of blood that forms at Ren’s feet.

“Find me memories involving sabres,” Hux tells him.

Ren blinks. “I’m not a librarian.”

“Yes, but you are a Chooser,” Hux says.

This is enough. This will be enough.

Ren gathers an arm full of books before scattering them on a table. “There,” he says, treating the books filled with filmsi and protected by leather as nothing more than trash. “Satisfied?”

Hux lowers his eyes to the assortment. There is no pattern to the books. Some belong in museums, transcribed by hand, with delicate illustrations on every page. Some are obviously diaries. Most look like books of fiction, all of different imprints. All of which should be treasured, worth countless amounts of credits.

“That remains to be seen,” Hux says mildly.

With no pattern, Hux begins by touching whatever book lies closest to him.

_It is raining in a stinking swamp. A huddled over figure traverses the uneven landscape carefully._

_Hux follows at a distance, waiting for a kyber crystal to make its appearance._

_The figure halts abruptly and turns around._

_“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering,” this man tells him before the swamp fades away._

Hux could spit and curse at that man. So what he was filled with fear and anger and hate? Life begins with suffering! He had learned that, along with so many other children of Arkanis.

How could you avoid perfectly normal emotions when you were abused and you were never sure where your next meal would come from?

If Hux tosses that book aside with particular vehemence then, well, it is of no matter. He could burn the book for forcing him to hear that drivel. Forget the book’s value—it was just garbage.

Ren raises a brow at the gesture, but Hux does not dignify this with an answer. Instead, he throws himself into the next book.

_A man whose skin is molted with burns and old scars. His hair is grey, framing his sharp, handsome features. Around him are the Empire’s Knights, dressed in dark, thick robes, each one wearing a helmet and bearing a new and terrible weapon._

_“This is the Ren,” this man says, holding up a sabre. “You follow the Ren.”_

_Then he cuts his hand open on his blade, blood welling up hotly._

_The masked Knights are silent._

_Then comes a new figure. He walks through Hux as though he is not there._

_This man—just an adolescent, really—is all big, wet eyes and features he has not grown into yet. This man would one day become Kylo Ren._

_“The Ren doesn’t apologize for its nature. It lives, it consumes, it cares not for good or evil or whatever else. Are you sure about your path?”_

_Kylo Ren follows this man’s lead, unhooking his sabre from his belt and cutting open his hand. At the heart of this sabre is a kyber crystal. Kylo Ren feeds it his blood until its clear blue grows foggy, then red._

_This man—the original Ren—scoffs. “Typical,” he says. “You’re with us now, kid.”_

When Hux blinks again, he is in the library again. _No_ , he wants to scream, he wants to shout. He was so close, so damned close!

Hux stares at the book he had been in for a long, long time, then turns his scathing gaze on Kylo Ren. “When you gathered these books, did you look into their memories?” he asks.

His Ren shakes his head. “The Choosers know the important pieces of the souls, but they belong to Death alone.”

Hux lets out a small hum.

“Would he know?”

“Know?”

“Would he know if you took a look for yourself?” Hux asks, voice low and dark and dangerous.

Ren’s eyes glitter with something strange and then, like in a dream, Ren reaches out and takes this book. Hux does not know how long it takes for one to peer into its contents but when Ren emerges sputtering and gasping for air, Hux knows that he was right.

“That was _me._ That was really me,” Ren says, half-broken. And then he snarls, like a wounded animal. “Why?”

“You’re asking me?” Hux says, snarling right back. “Why don’t you ask Death? All of you had been the Emperor’s Knights. Don’t you think it’s strange how all of this underworld resembles the Empire more than anything else?”

“Shared memories,” Ren says weakly. “This realm is created through the shared memories of those who have entered it.”

Hux scoffs. “When you first took me into the underworld, there was a river of water and of bodies. That wasn’t very Imperial. This library isn’t Imperial at all—the Empire would never procure books printed on flimsi! They’re too expensive and delicate. Everything that revolves around _Death_ himself is Imperial.”

And, just as the words leave Hux’s mouth, he falls down, down, down, through floors and walls and other people. Memories swallow him down, wrapping him in so many layers of silk.

Death stands far above him, larger than life and wrapped in layers of gold. His skin is twisted over old scars, shiny and pink. He moves oddly, like a puppet dangling from its strings.

"I have something for you," Death tells Hux before nestling a broken device into his cupped hands.

Were he anyone else, perhaps he would not have recognized it at once. Were he not a son of the Empire, perhaps he would not have heard the old stories.

Death pats the top of his head, like an overindulgent mother.

Hux blinks at this, his breath hitching in his chest. "I don't understand," he says, but he flies through the walls and is returned to the library, placed gently onto an ice blue couch, a damp towel across his feverish brow.

He was not sure if either the couch or the towel had been there before.

Hux tilts the Wayfinder in his hand. It is broken, but that fact has never stopped him before. If anything, this only encourages him.

"Hux," says Ren, his eyes wide. He stumbles towards the couch, face ashen. "You're back."

Then Ren touches him, his gloved hand reaching for Hux's own. He covers Hux's hands, ignoring the Wayfinder for now.

"How long was I gone?" Hux asks.

"Too long," is Ren's answer.

Had this silly Chooser been afraid for him? Hux could laugh. There is nothing to be afraid for.

He has already died. The Chooser had been the one to urge him to accept death.

Hux smiles wanly anyway.

Where had Ren been when they were still alive? Hux surely could have been separated from dreary Arkanis if he had a suitor of this caliber, spirited away to lands unknown.

He does not say this.

Instead, Hux returns to the books and throws himself into their pages, searching for their most desperate secrets.

*

Hux finds the names of the Choosers because of course he does. He's _Armitage Hux_ and he is nothing if not resourceful and clever. He has never once failed, prior to his curse, and, even then, he would say that he managed fairly well.

He finds the names of the Choosers, but Kylo Ren's own name escapes him, flittering just out of reach.

Annoying.

Frustrating.

And, he will not admit this to anyone, it is sad.

Armitage Hux cannot be a failure. But he _is_ and this _hurts_.

So he sets off on this new, more exciting task. Fixing a Wayfinder, one not seen in ages.

Ren procures tools for him somehow and Hux sprawls on the floor of the library, tinkering with the Wayfinder's many delicate parts. Inside, there are shards of kyber crystal, all various shades of bloodied red, like the candied innards of some animal.

These shards cut up the meat of Hux's hands, but he cannot quite care.

There's no real blood here. He is dead and his flesh is likely carrion by now.

This is a very elaborate dream within a dream. These are the halls of Death or, rather, he who would want to conquer Death.

Hux smiles to himself as he works. He can feel it on his face, try as he must to look dignified.

"Your smile," Ren says. "You don't have to hide."

"Don't be ridiculous," Hux scolds. "I'd never hide."

Ren smiles, so thoroughly amused that it annoys Hux. "Of course," Ren says, like he's doing Hux a favor.

How ridiculous.

Hux ignores Ren then and focuses solely on the Wayfinder held within his hands. He did not want to even begin considering on the reality of the Wayfinder.

There are always two--one for a master and one for an apprentice.

Who would he find if he followed this Wayfinder home?

He can feel the weight of Ren's gaze on him. This... is not necessarily a bad thing.

Hux fiddles for a length of unsure time, until the Wayfinder emits a faint glow, humming out a strange, familiar song. "It's done," he says, voice scarcely a whisper.

"Will you follow it?" asks Ren. "Wherever it will take you?"

Hux swallows thickly. Something has possessed him, body and soul. He must follow this Wayfinder, wherever it will take him.

He must follow the source of this song.

Hux stands and allows the Wayfinder's soft light to shine against the pallor of Ren's skin. "Come with me," he says, unwilling or afraid to _ask_ Ren this. "Come _with_ me."

But Ren allows this.

Ren entertains this strange request of his.

Ren, this great and terrible Chooser of Death, follows in Hux's footsteps, hanging gingerly off of Hux's elbow, like a painted Queen of Naboo.

The halls of Death are unreal, little more than mist. Hux follows the Wayfinder where it leads him, regardless of what screams around him. He goes through the library, through golden gilded halls, through great big conference chambers and war rooms. He passes through dead fields, crops trampled underfoot. He sinks through the Sinking Fields of Jakku.

When Hux falls, he lands in Ren's waiting arms.

Ren settles him, gaze unwavering. "I... know where this is," he says eventually.

Hux's breath stops. "I do as well," he says, eyes taking in the great war machine of Darth Vader, the Emperor's dog.

He had been dead long before the end of the war, unable to kill his own son, the wizard Luke Skywalker.

Hux swallows as he turns around slowly.

There, before them, is not Darth Vader.

There, before them, is Anakin Skywalker.

Once again, there is a merging of two worlds, like two holofilms overlain, one atop the other. In one layer, Anakin Skywalker is a young, handsome man, dressed in the robes of a Jedi Master. In another layer, Anakin Skywalker has been burnt terribly and dressed as though he is about to attend a funeral.

Slowly, Kylo Ren steps forwards, breathing raggedly. He falls to his knees, reaching out for Anakin Skywalker's robes, much like a child.

Then, Kylo Ren says something terrible.

Kylo Ren says, "Grandfather...?"

He is unsure and hurt and confused, all of these great and terrible emotions shining in pale, golden eyes. Then, his eyes dim, resembling the amber warmth of honey.

Hux watches a scene that he should not. He is an interloper here, unwelcome and strange.

But he holds the Wayfinder in his hands anyway. It still emits a soft light, pulsing against Anakin Skywalker's face.

"I cannot hide you for long," Anakin Skywalker says, voice grave. "Even now, he's searching for both of you."

Hux does not dare blink. This may still be a hallucination, of sorts. All of this may be an elaborate hallucination. He would not put it past Enric Pryde to poison his drink with something to ease the way.

"You have to find his name," Anakin Skywalker tells Hux. "He gave it away before. When he did that, he trapped himself beyond my reach. No one can help you escape but yourselves."

Hux nods. "I have my suspicions," he says easily enough.

A Knight of the Empire. And, now, he knew that whoever his Kylo Ren had been is related to Anakin Skywalker.

Hux looks at Ren blearily, trying to align his features with those of Luke Skywalker. He had never seen the Jedi in person, but he had seen propaganda.

Especially after Luke Skywalker killed the fearsome Darth Vader.

Ren's gloved hands pass through Anakin Skywalker's robes as though he were nothing but air. He tries again and again, each attempt growing more feeble. "Why can't I touch you, grandfather?" Ren beseeches him.

"Because," Anakin Skywalker says, "I have died and moved on. You, however, are trapped."

With this, the Wayfinder's light breaks into a thousand sharp pieces.

Each one embeds itself beneath Hux's skin.

Hux falls down, down, down.

It takes Ren longer to reach him.

*

Hux wakes, once again, within that library.

Ren is beside him, a silent sentinel. His face is still and smooth, like marble, with a single crack in the form of his scar. If he remembers what had happened, then he hides it well.

All of Hux is shaking as he reaches for the next book.

_A man charging into battle, his heart set on following his lover, wherever his lover might go._

_Predictably, this man dies, but not before he sees his lover die terribly, body cast upon a thousand sabres._

Hux repeats this process again and again, and yet he learns precious little about Darth Vader and his kin.

None of the souls had any recollection of Darth Vader. As if the man had never existed.

"What do you remember?" Hux asks him.

But Ren looks at him oddly. "Did... I forget something?" he says slowly.

"Never mind," Hux says, scoffing. Typical. He should have expected that Ren would leave all the work to him. "Ren, could you bring me all of the books pertaining to the Skywalker family?"

Ren tilts his head. "What family?" His voice is faraway and distant.

"The Skywalker family."

But Ren's gaze is empty. "I... am unaware of such a family. There are no books kept here for them."

"Hmm."

If anything, this only confirms his theory.

Hux studies Ren's pale, perfect face, one whose visage could belong to a statue. Kylo Ren had called Anakin Skywalker his grandfather. As far as Hux was aware, Anakin Skywalker spawned only two children.

It couldn’t be Luke Skywalker.

But… there was the matter of Leia Organa, who had lost her son to the war.

Hux shuts his eyes.

 _Ben Organa-Solo_. _Ben Organa-Solo. Ben Organa-Solo._

When he opens his eyes, he is unsure if he is entirely correct.

Ren didn't look much like his mother. Ren didn't know who the Skywalkers were.

But they were running out of time.

This day is already over.

*

Once again, Hux is trapped within a room of luxuries that he could not even begin to comprehend. So much gold and silk could have fed countless hungry mouths. But this is death, he reminds himself, even as he lies against a mountain of pillows.

None of this can be real.

An elaborate illusion of one man's world, his wants and his ambitions.

When he knows this, how could Hux ever hope to dream?

He lies there, staring up at the ceiling, thinking that perhaps, if he narrowed his eyes, he could see the same stars that hung above Arkanis. That perhaps this was but a dream. That he could return to the life he had left, as though he has not been irrevocably changed.

If he shuts his eyes fully and pretends, than he can hear the waves crash against the cliffs of Arkanis, the patter of rain, the far off call of seabirds.

But he has never been good at pretending.

He waits instead, until Death draws near.

*

Ren takes him to the library once again, hand in unloveable hand.

Hux sits peacefully at a desk, paging idly through books.

He recites the names of the Choosers inside of his head. He recites the name of the man who would be Death.

He is certain.

“Ren,” Hux says when he feels this day draw near. “Bring me to Death.”

He has no more to do here.

Ren obliges. Of course he would. This Chooser of Death is a pushover.

In the throne room, Death awaits, seated on his throne. His hands rest on either side of him, fingers tapping against the arms of the throne. There is something odd he had not noticed before—that his fingers are mangled, skin blackened or missing entirely, wounds severe enough to expose bone.

He is surrounded by his Choosers, all save for Ren, who does not leave Hux’s side.

“Armitage Hux,” says Death, so thoroughly amused. His smile is something small and vicious. “Have you found the names of my Choosers?”

“Ap’lek. Cardo. Kuruk. Trudgen. Ushar. Vicrul,” Hux says, pointing them out one by one. Then, he jerks his finger in Ren’s direction. “Ben Organa-Solo.”

Like a spell broken, the Choosers remove their helmets, tossing them aside. A spark of light shines within their eyes.

Their eyes, now free of that sickly yellow sheen.

And then Hux offers his own smile, one where he bears all of his teeth. He points his finger at Death and says, “And your name is Palpatine.”

He’s right of course. He can feel smug about it for a good second or two.

Palpatine strikes out, lightning filling the air.

Hux falls back, entire body alight with static.

And then Palpatine laughs again, unable to hold back. “Foolish boy,” he says. “Did you really think I would let you go?”

Hux’s breath comes out broken. He cannot get enough air. How funny that he should suffocate after his death. Blood drips down him nose, spilling down his chin.

His body is electric, half-numb, half-screaming nerves.

He hears a wounded sound and mocks it viciously in his head before realizing that it had come from his throat.

Palpatine extends his hand again, lightning shooting through his spine.

He feels a part of himself break, the world around him growing dim.

“Do you really think I would let any of this go?” says Palpatine. He laughs, but it is a far-off, distant sound.

His soul is shattering, piece by piece. He can feel himself grow weak, weaker, weakest.

But soon he will not exist, not even in a memory.

“Stop!” Ben shouts, putting himself bodily before Hux.

Hux does not know what happens next. Ben will never tell him.

Between one blink and the next, Palpatine is split down the middle. His body fallen before the throne. His so-called Choosers all brandish glowing, wicked weapons.

Hux shuts his eyes and fades away.

Or rather, he would have, had Ben Organa-Solo not been there.

Ben kneels and gathers the pieces of Hux into his arms. “Please,” Ben says, sounding wounded, sounding broken. He’s crying, tears running down his cheeks and spilling onto Hux.

His eyes are a lovely brown.

“Please,” Ben says. “Please, don’t.”

Soft, gentle warmth bleeds into Hux, surrounding him like a hug. He is loved. He is so loved in this embrace.

Hux wakes with a jolt, gasping for breath as though he had been starved.

Ben Organa-Solo is dead. His chest does not rise. His eyes are foggy and distant.

The Knights surround them both, kneeling, their gazes lowered in disbelief and mourning.

“You fool!” Hux snaps at Ben. “You absolute lunk of a man! You nerfherder! Did you really think I wanted you to die for me? This is _unacceptable_.”

And then Hux kisses him.

This is not a soft kiss, like one from fairy tales and legends. This is not a chaste, kind thing, like what the Pearl Diver gave onto Death.

This kiss is all teeth and force and has all the force of a thousand years of anger behind it. Hux bites Ben until Ben bleeds and still he kisses the other man.

Ben comes to with a gasp.

They separate only briefly, puffs of breath as the only boundary between them. Then Ben reaches up and places his hand on the back of Hux’s neck. He guides Hux close and kisses him, again and again, like he had been a drowning man, like he could not get enough of Hux’s clumsy, cruel kisses.

“Hux, Hux, Hux,” Ben chants, as though his name is a spell.

There’s something charming to it, but Hux shuts him up with more kisses, pressing against the other man desperately. Ben is warm, Ben is alive, Ben is _real_.

And then Hux pauses, glaring at the Knights, who, for their worth, pretend not to be witnesses to this truly shameful display of affection.

“We need to leave,” Hux tells the group of warriors shrouded in black. “How long before this place falls apart?”

The Knights have no answer for him.

He snorts. Typical.

Hux rises to his feet and helps Ben onto his. Ben wobbles precariously, but never strays out of Hux’s space. He’s clingy, now more than before, his eyes wet and warm and filled with so much _emotion._ Hux looks away, face aflame.

Together, do Armitage Hux and Prince Ben Organa-Solo walk out of this sham of a death, all of their Knights following behind them.

*

In the world of the living, not much changes.

Why would the world of the living take notice of the troubles that befall the dead?

No one would ever know what had occurred. This Hux was sure.

*

In the world of the living, many things change.

“Come with me,” Ben tells him, breath brushing the shell of Hux’s ear. He takes Hux’s hands into his own, grip gentle and sweet. He’d already brushed countless kisses against those knuckles. “Come with me to Alderaan.”

And Hux, who had cursed and raged against Arkanis, who had killed his father and the man who would have had him forcibly as a husband, he who had served the Empire, cannot help but smile.

It isn’t a kind smile by any means. Hux is not a kind person.

It is a smile, regardless.

“Of course,” Hux says, deceptively sweet and gentle and patient, all things that he has never been.

In this world of the living, Armitage Hux and Prince Ben Organa-Solo still had many days beneath the sun.

In this world of the living, their story has barely begun.

*

(In Alderaan, Leia Organa sits upon her balcony, eyes cast to the horizon.

If she expects visitors then, well, it is no one’s business but her own.)

*

*

*


End file.
